494 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE RACE: 



veloped organism, the seeing artist who, beholding the work 

 of the germ-cell, either pronounces it, in the light of the suc- 

 cess which it brings, to be good, or else, w^hen it spells ruin, 

 curses it effectively by sinking with it into extinction. There 

 is no difficulty in understanding how a germinal mutation, 

 having arisen, comes to stay. That is provided for in the 

 continuity of the germ-plasm. It is probably, then, by the 

 entailment of the results of intrinsic germinal experiments, 

 and not by the imprinting of the results of individual ex- 

 periences, that the steps made in phylogeny become regis- 

 tered in the germ-cells, and thus made expressible in the 

 ontogeny for long ages to come. 



§ 5. Nature and Nurture. 



Development is always the result of an interaction between 

 inherited nature (the germinal organisation and activity), 

 and appropriate nurture (air, moisture, space, warmth, food, 

 light, exercise, education, and much else). The tw^o are 

 complementary. Though the direction of development is 

 mainly intrinsic, the degree of expression which the inherit- 

 ance attains is conditioned by nurture. Theoretically, the 

 point is of interest that there is what may be called an 

 external heritage in relation to which the natural inheritance 

 must develop. For we are ever apt to isolate too much, for- 

 getting that the actuality is an association of organisms in 

 a definite region. It is of obvious practical importance that 

 the best possible nurture be secured. Otherwise promising 

 variations may remain like sleeping buds, an inherited talent 

 may remain hidden in a napkin in the ground. Hereditary 

 characters are like seeds requiring soil and sunshine and 

 rain, l^egatively too it is always possible that alterations 

 of nurture may prevent the actualism of inherited pre- 



